How to calculate electric bill

[mathjak107]

Originally Posted by Lowexpectations

It’s not that straight forward where I live, you have the base kWh, transmission/decliners charges and a lot of plans have additional credit/debits if you use too much or too little

yep , just about every utility has different rates depending if your home has electric heat or not .

con ed as an example has a el-1 rated customer which is non electric heat and an el-3 customer which has electric heat .

the usage is tiered . the more you use as el-3 the cheaper the cost . distribution charges can be more than usage in any class.

some utilities have different rates during peak hours as well as some may use demand meters .

the reverse is true too . con ed sells gas so gas heated homes pay more for electric but less for gas than electric heat homes .electric heat homes pay less for electric and more for gas

[galaxyhi]

Op.

We tried shopping around once, twice actually.

One time the bill would be $150 (for example), the next month $10. This continued the year we had with them. They over estimated our usage so the actual charges the following month were nil. We couldn't swallow that.

The other time. The company wanted to ACH your payment directly each month
That didnt last long as soon i got a bounced check notice from my bank. I DONT bounce checks. I dont play floats or other things. If it aint already in there and cleared, i dont write a check. Turns out they were supposedly "hacked " to where monthly charges were taken weekly. Ok. No problem. Fix it and refund me. 3 months later after only 3 bills were due, they took 13 "monthly" payments over that time. They claimed they were " working on it'. BS, they were greedy. They didn't fix it, and finally shut down that account. Then they refused to bill new account, or refund because we closed the account, or credit us with a years worth of free ( previousoy paid for ) electric!!

I said no more. Went back to the conglomerate here.

Also the conglomerate can only adjust their charges, NOT the alternative supplier. Try and get the alternative supplier to adjust their bill or budget, forget it. They are usually across the country from the area they serve.

So even if we pay more, we stick with the monopoly where we can go into the office and get stuff adjusted or pay directly or bring a solution to a problem we have quickly.

Beware.

[mathjak107]

generating power is quite cheap in many locations , but even in the more costlier areas like nyc , generation is way way cheaper then the distribution part . that is where the huge expenses are .

don't forget the utility has to provide you with the lines , the transformers and all the associated stuff to get you the maximum amount of power anytime you want it .

if you use that maximum power for a few months in the summer then they don't get compensated for all that capacity that sits idle all year . .

imagine how many cable companies would go bankrupt if you only paid for what you watched .

well cable is far less costly than huge power transmission stuff .

on the other hand all the un-used power generated at any given time is sold on the grid . nothing goes to waste